The name Peppermint Bark evokes memories of the crisp scent of mint with the sweet smell of white chocolate in a certain kitchen goods store I love to visit. I can almost feel the big bar breaking raggedly in my hand as the strong scent of mint stings my nose! Then you carefully gather all those little bits that broke off and pop them in your mouth before taking a big bite, and the white chocolate melts on your fingers.

The scent of this tea hit spot on with that memory. Fresh, sharp mint and rich, creamy white chocolate tickle your nostrils. The white chocolate is less obvious in the scent of the steeped tea but its sweetness is there, keeping this from falling into being a ho-hum plain peppermint.

Even though it is still winter as I drink this, we are already having some spells of hot weather where I live, but that’s okay because nothing refreshes quite like mint when you need to cool off.

A cooling cup it is, too! In winter, a hot cuppa will always warm you, but this is so very minty that I can also drink it hot OR cold on a hot day for refreshment. I have only had it unsweetened, but for those who like sweet tea, I really think this would be amazing that way.

The mint really is the star of the show in this tea, and even though I usually favor spearmint over peppermint by a long margin, the peppermint in this tea had delicious flavor, really sweet and fresh tasting without the edge of bitterness that sometimes creeps in with peppermint.

I am a music teacher, tutor, and former homeschool mom (25 years!) who started drinking loose leaf tea about seven years ago! My daughters and I have tea every day, and we are frequently joined by my students or friends for “tea time.” Now my hubby joins us, too. His tastes have evolved from Tetley with milk and sugar to mostly unadorned greens and oolongs.
We have learned so much history, geography, and culture in this journey.
My avatar is a mole in a teacup! Long story…

I got a sample of Sweet Peppermint from Tea Drops in some teamail from a friend. Most of the tea I drink for fun or for reviews are loose leaf teas, with the occasional bagged tea as well. I personally haven’t tried many instant teas, so at first I was a bit baffled with the right way to brew this sample from Tea Drops. Simply put the tea-cake into hot water and stir. How easy is that?

Let me draw attention to the adorable fact that this Sweet Peppermint sample came pressed into the shape of a heart. The cuteness of this tea-cake is the essential detail here, and is what makes these Tea Drops teas such cute gift ideas. They have other shapes like stars and flowers as well as the heart shape I tried.

Brewed this tea is mildly minty, very sugar and sweet, with some creamy vanilla tones. The little compressed tea-cakes might be an easy solution to brewing tea on the go. Consider stashing a few of these in your desk at work for when the going gets tough and you only have a mug around for tea-brewing.

As a tea, this blend is okay. The cuteness of the presentation is its true benefit and enjoyment. Definitely worth a try for the novelty of their super-cute tea-cakes.

Growing up, I drank herbal teas like fresh ginger tea during New England's harsh winters and iced blueberry tea during its humid summers. Over time, I was tempted into trying a wider variety of loose leaf teas by the fandom-themed blends available online. I have since gone on to design my own blends, and I greatly enjoy drafting up flavor ideas and drawing tea labels.
When I'm not thinking about tea I can be found reading novels and comic books, playing video games, or watching movies; my favorite genres being history, humor, sci-fi, and fantasy.
Generally, I prefer bold teas: spicy chais, rich black teas, even smoky lapsang souchong on occasion. But I have also dabbled in herbal rooibos, flavored oolongs, and traditional matcha. I'm glad to be expanding my palette by tasting and reviewing new teas and blends.
Find me on Steepster: http://steepster.com/A2shedsjackson
Fandom blends: http://www.adagio.com/signature_blend/list.html?userId=292149

This one is a delightful green, with hints of berry and mint at the forefront. Now, I’ll be honest– I may have brewed this one up a bit too hot, as I hadn’t realized it was a green until after my water went a’boilin’. (Not my– wait for it– *smart*est moment, but I digress.)

But regardless, it was everything I love greens to be– fruity, light, grassy– and nothing I dislike– bitter, or vegetal.

Did it make me any smarter?

I can’t say for sure (and my flub on the boiling temp would surely suggest otherwise), but it was great afternoon sipping, and gave me just enough pep to make it through til the end of the day.

If I’m smart enough to know what’s good for me, I’ll be brewing this one again!

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Green

Description

Channel your inner Einstein with mental stimulating Ginkgo Biloba, Peppermint and Gotu Kola. Whether you need to tackle a job interview, a test or just figure out what’s for dinner, drink this minty flavored tea to bring out the most brilliant you!

Hi there! I'm Mary, a 27-year-old mental health professional living with my fiancé and our quirky kitten in the Midwest! I've loved tea for as long as I can remember-- in fact, I have vivid memory of being four or five in a tea shop and being mesmerized by all the tea flavors and proclaiming that I "was going to be kind of adult who drank tea, not coffee." A stint living (and tea-drinking my way through) London and twenty-some years later, I'm still channeling that sassy four-year-old and loving my tea habit. When I'm not sipping a cuppa, you'll find me reading, doing yoga, traveling, exploring my own city, planning our wedding and experimenting with different healthful and healing foods in my kitchen.

I’ve been feeling the need to cull my tea collection lately, friends. Now, before you gasp and exile me from Sororitea-Sisterhood, let me clarify. I have SO MUCH TEA. And frankly, lots of my “backlog” teas are ones that have sat there for a very, very, very long time. Rather than letting them languish, I’ve been packing them up (or tossing them out, if they’re really *that* old) and passing onto friends, and keeping my core collection full of teas that I really, really love. (this way, when new samples come in, I can happily sip a cup or two and then move along to the next without a giant back-stash of guilt staring at me from my tea cabinet.)

Now, you’d think in all this freshening-up of my tea cabinet, I’d be staying away from picking up anything new. Ah, friends, but you would be wrong. While I’ve been trying to stay away from restocking the empty spaces in my cabinets, the siren song of new blends has been a little tricky to resist. I’ve mostly persisted, but when I saw this cute little box of pyramid sachets for only a handful of dollars at Trader Joe’s, I knew it was coming to work with me for easy brewing.

This blend is simple, as the name implies– only peppermint leaves and cinnamon stick chunks, perfectly visible in the bag. It’s autumnal (thanks, cinnamon!) without being in-your-face, it’s herby and fresh (oh hey, peppermint) without being toothpaste-y. I can say with all honesty that it’s unlike any herbal I’ve ever had before– and frankly, when it comes to herbals, I’m learning that the simpler/fewer ingredients, the better. I’m finding this the perfect little bridge to get me through my mid-morning/pre-lunch slump during the workday, and it hits those festive fall notes, to boot. Well done, TJ’s! This is worthy of a space in my forever-cabinet.

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Herbal

Hi there! I'm Mary, a 27-year-old mental health professional living with my fiancé and our quirky kitten in the Midwest! I've loved tea for as long as I can remember-- in fact, I have vivid memory of being four or five in a tea shop and being mesmerized by all the tea flavors and proclaiming that I "was going to be kind of adult who drank tea, not coffee." A stint living (and tea-drinking my way through) London and twenty-some years later, I'm still channeling that sassy four-year-old and loving my tea habit. When I'm not sipping a cuppa, you'll find me reading, doing yoga, traveling, exploring my own city, planning our wedding and experimenting with different healthful and healing foods in my kitchen.

Riddle’s Tea Shoppe and Curiosities is an awesome Etsy store that sells many fandom-inspired goods. There is a big focus on Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts and Lord of the Rings/the Hobbit inspired teas, post cards, buttons, and other trinkets, though she explores other fandoms as well. Each item displayed beautifully in the images on her site. In fact, that is how I found this company, through the beautiful images strewn throughout Instagram advertising her products.

For weeks I tried to buy her many tea samples but each Wednesday when she restocked, everything sold out so fast that I was unable to make my purchase. That is until one Wednesday when I made sure to be online for exactly when the restock occurred and quickly threw one of each tea in my cart and cashed out.

It was while perusing her site that I realized I had actually tried some of the teas before. How is that possible since I never bought her stuff? Well, before selling directly through Riddle’s Tea Shoppe and Curiosities, the shop owner offered her blends on the fandom section of the Adagio Teas website.

This particular tea, The Lucky Snitch, is not one I had previously tasted so when I got to brewing, I was excited for something new. In light of the chocolate, peppermint, cinnamon, and creme, I thought this would make for a good latte so I measured out what I needed for that and used the rest to make a hot cup of this tea plain. I steeped both for 4 minutes in 200 degree water.

The plain tea really emphasizes the peppermint. Its the top note that sits atop the chocolate, another flavor highlighted in the cup. The two components, though complimentary, at times seems a bit disconnected. I don’t get much in the way of cinnamon or ginger and though creme is also not a flavor I notice, I believe it helps give the chocolate a silkiness that is more akin to milk chocolate as opposed to more of a cocoa or dark chocolate. So, this tea essentially tastes of a milk chocolate bar that someone put peppermint on.

The latte does something a little different to the tea as it seems to have brought out some more of the cinnamon/spice notes. That makes this heavier. I genuinely thought the milk would make this more creamy but instead it gives a cinnamon weightiness to the whole blend. The peppermint still lingers on top though somehow more harmoniously blends with the other components. Meanwhile, the chocolate disappeared a bit in the mix. Given that lack of chocolate flavor, this makes me think of when you make hot chocolate packets with water instead of milk and everything just feels watered down, which is especially strange in light of this being made with milk. A faint shadow of hot chocolate, except in this case, a shadow of a peppermint mexican hot chocolate given the focus on peppermint and cinnamon. It is not bad, but surprisingly this does better as a plain cup of peppermint chocolate tea.

Does it stand out among all the other peppermint chocolate teas out there? No, so I probably will stick to the ones I can more easily attain in Canada. However, it is a nice take on the flavors and if this blend is one that you can obtain easily and without paying much shipping, it is worth a try.

Hey there! My name is Rachel. I’m a twenty-something from Toronto, Ontario, Canada who loves dogs and has a bit of an obsession with tea. As a child I hated the stuff since all I ever knew was Red Rose (no offense to Red Rose). However, a few years ago that all changed. I was on a diet and desperate for new flavors without adding calories and that’s when I turned to tea. I started off by going to DAVIDsTEA and Teavana for all their dessert-inspired flavors, and since I didn’t know any better, I bought 100 grams each of about twenty-something different teas. This was okay for the teas I liked but for those I didn’t I needed to find some way of getting rid of them.
Enter Steepster.com. This is where I met some incredible tea friends, discovered tea swaps, and learned of so many amazing tea companies. My desire to try all the teas grew and since joining three years ago I have tried over a thousand different teas. I have learned what ingredients I love and I have learned what flavors I don’t like. I determined my go-to brewing method is Western-style with no added milk or sweeteners, though I also enjoy cold brewing, iced teas, teapops, lattes, and smoothies. I have yet to brew gong-fu style but I hope to do so just as soon as I get the proper teaware to do it.
About a year ago, I actually stopped drinking tea but as my stash of over 200 teas started aging I decided I needed to respark my interest. I chose to take a 365 days of tea challenge on Instagram in which I post a new tea picture every day. So far it has been rather successful as I find myself drinking (and buying) more and more tea each day. Plus it enabled CuppaGeek to find me and invite me here to SororiTea Sisters.